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Sex, Lies And Anecdotes: Gender Relations In The Life Stories Of Italian Women Artists, 1550-1800, Julia K. Dabbs

Art History Publications

The writer discusses gender relations in life stories of Italian women artists between 1550 and 1800. In early modern life stories, a recurring emphasis on gender relations, typically deflecting or overshadowing discussion of artistic accomplishment, clearly marks the female artist as a breed apart from her male colleagues. In light of the fact that their biographers were frequently artists themselves, or at least were linked to artistic circles, the commonalities of these anecdotal narratives illuminate how these “miracles of nature” were viewed by the male artistic community, and, by association, the broader society of which they were a part. The …